Fun on the Fourth!

We had a great 4th of July this year!
Perfect weather!
Great friends!
Fun times!
Take a look at our fun filled day....
We started out by heading off to our city's annual 4th of July festival.

Kade and Ryne were both happy to be waving their American flags.

The festival really gets kicked off with a parade so we were a bit early and got to hang out and play while we waited for the parade to start.

Kade being silly with a frisbee he was given. He told me he was an angel.


Kyle and the boys were picking out our parade watching spot.


Our friends Jonathan and Adri and their two boys met up with us and the boys had lots of fun playing frisbee and running around until it was parade time.

Here are the Dad's keeping an eye on the boys.
Was looking like a pretty easy job, huh?
Maybe Kade was being an angel after all. Ha!


Kyle and Kade decided to hit the street curb to get up close parade action.


Ryne and his flag hung out on the hillside with me.

Isn't he the cutest little parade watcher you've ever seen?


Nice army tank! Ryne was waving his flag big for the soldiers!


Then he decided to hitch a ride on Mrs. Adri's shoulders.

We thought this truck might just float away it had so many balloons on it.

Poor Adri....Ryne looks like he's trying to pull her head off.
Maybe he was just trying to get Mr. Jonathan and Joshua to play a game of chicken with them.


Kade kept his spot on the curb until the very end of the parade.
Look, he even scored a balloon from the balloon filled truck!


One of my favorite parade entries...Noah's Ark with a live band aboard!

When the parade was over Kyle had to go help a group clean up from a pancake breakfast that they had that morning at the park. Kade and Ryne and I went to stand in line for the inflatable fire truck slide. We had retrieved Ryne from that area multiple times while we were waiting on the parade and promised that he would get to go there as soon as the parade was over.

So here we are standing patiently in line, shoes off and everything.
Kade and Ryne both did so go waiting in line for their turn.
And we waited for at least twenty minutes.

Here is Kade coming down the slide!
No picture of Ryne though!
Why?
Well, after all that waiting in line, they wouldn't let him go. Said he wasn't tall enough!
Mind you, Kade is only 3 inches taller than Ryne these days.
Guess who cried???
ME!!
Nope, not Ryne, he actually handled it quite well.
I think my pregnancy hormones must have kicked in. I felt awful for him because we had promised him that he could ride after the parade and then he did so well waiting patiently in line. Then on top of that, I, in my 36 week pregnant condition couldn't even offer to go down with him. Boo!!
I apologized to the poor little guy who knows how many times. And we were off to find something he could do.
Apparently the theme for the day was going to be "wait in line" so we did it again.
This time we waited in line to spin a wheel....


Everybody was a winner!
Ryne won a juice box and Kade won a sucker!


I missed Ryne sharing his juice box with Kade but Kade did return the favor and let Ryne have a lick of his sucker.

Here is Kade working on his sucker.
Guess what we are doing here?
Waiting in line AGAIN!
For the pony ride!

Eventually Kade found himself waiting here in my lap for a while.
Of course that is probably because he was tired from running around and playing while Kyle and I actually took turns standing in line.

Ryne found a lap of his own to wait in. Lissa's!
Just after I took this picture I looked back and saw this....

Kade hanging out in D's lap!
So thankful for Lissa and D hanging out at the pony ride to keep us company?
Why?
Well, we were there in line for well over an hour!!!!
YES, it is true!!!
Even tried several times to talk the boys out of waiting and go do something else. Nope, those boys wanted to ride a pony!

Here they are, FINALLY next in line!
Think it was worth it?
Just look at this face....

Oh yes, they loved every minute of it!

We could hear Ryne talking to his pony each time he came around.


With pony rides complete, and boys happy, we headed home for this...

A little 4th of July picnic in the backyard!
Yummy!!
Then we just got to hang out in the backyard for a bit and enjoy the nice weather and the good company. Ryne took a nap. Kade just took advantage of a couple of guys willing to play baseball with him. I bet he swung that bat over 100 times!
Then he waited and waited for Ryne to wake up so that they could do this....

Kade had been asking all day to swim in the pool since it was such a warm sunshiny day.

I asked him to show me how happy he was about it.
Pretty sure this is more like ecstatic!

They had a great time splashing around...even if the water was freezing.
My favorite part of the swimming adventure...

Ryne riding the jet ski!!!

Next up on our fun filled day was a special treat that Kyle got for the boys....

Fireworks!!

Kyle got ones that the boys could help do.


And each time they were so proud of themselves for helping Daddy with our very own fireworks show.


Sure wish I had this picture from the front. But nonetheless, I like it from the back just the same since I was trying to take it easy at this point and just watch from my chair.

This is the best shot I got of both of their faces watching the show....I'm thinking maybe this was when Kyle was introducing them to "morning glories."

And then they got to hold their own morning glories!

What did Ryne think about that?

Yep, he was pleased!

Then Dad helped them each do some small Roman Candles.....


We had a fun little Lewallen fireworks show in our front yard.
It had been such a fun day that we decided to go ahead and push the limits and try to go to the BIG fireworks show down in Steilacoom. They do one every year out over the Puget Sound. It is only about 12 minutes from us but we haven't ever gone because it doesn't start until 10:30 pm. (It doesn't get dark around here until then.) That is 2 and 1/2 hours past our boys bedtime. But we decided to go ahead and give it a whirl.
We met up with several friends in a great spot overlooking the sound.

I was there long enough to see this spectacular view and to get the boys settled in here....

in the back of D and Lissa's truck.
Can you tell they were excited?
Anyway, about this point I had sneezed 30 times and I could feel my eyes starting to swell shut.
Whatever was in the grassy field that we walked through was not being very nice to me. I quickly told Kyle I had to get out of there and then retreated to the car!!!
Certainly didn't want to be sneezing any babies out during a fireworks show in Steilacoom.
I missed some visiting with all these fun people....

(Yes, they are wearing sweatshirts and jackets and covered in blankets. That's how we do things here in the Pacific Northwest on the 4th of July.)
Thankfully, I could still see lots of this from my place in the car....

Steilacoom did a great job with their fireworks show. And I do think the boys enjoyed it.
However, next year....I'm thinking we might just have to skip it.
Why?
Well, after such an amazing fun-filled day...today was SO NOT THAT!!!
Not sure where that angel Kade from yesterday went but he was no where to be found around our place today. Ryne was a grump all day, too! Kade had to go to bed without lunch. Ryne refused to even go to sleep at nap time. And just now...two hours after putting them to bed, I just had to put Kade back in his bed AGAIN!!
Apparently, too much fun isn't a good thing for this Lewallen clan!!!
Going to have to put a cap on the amount of fun we are allowed to have in a day so that the following day we don't find ourselves paying for it. Geez!!!

On a much more exciting note....my parents are about to be here! Seriously, within a couple of hours they will be arriving at our house in DuPont!
My insane parents left south Arkansas yesterday morning at 6:30am and will be here tonight somewhere between 10 and 11pm. They have driven nonstop!! Crazy!! My Mom got nervous about babies getting here before them and they just made a mad dash to Washington to keep that from happening. I am so blessed to have parents who love me enough to do such crazy things for me.
And for those of you who think Kade is just trying to wait them out before going to sleep....WE DID NOT TELL HIM THAT THEY WERE COMING TONIGHT!!!! What the crazy? You think he knows?